Casio MRG-7500BJ-1AJF Watch Review

The MRG line of Casio G-Shocks is as high-end as G-Shocks come. They are the most sophisticated, most refined, toughest, and, of course, most expensive watches Casio makes. Watches in the MRG line range from around $700 to over $3,000 with the MRG-7500 falling in the middle at around $1,500. Why so expensive? Check out these features:

•Titanium case and bracelet with highly scratch resistant DLC (Diamond Like Carbon) coating.
•Push-button and lockable clasp. There’s a switch on the clasp that allows you to lock the clasp which disables the push-button release mechanism. This is one of my favorite features of the MRG line, and something I’ve never seen on any other watch.
•Nearly scratchproof sapphire crystal.
•Extremely shock-resistant construction.
•Atomic calibration (Japan, US, and Europe).
•Solar powered with about a two-year power reserve, two power saving modes, and a low-battery alert (the second hand starts jumping in two-second intervals).
•Stopwatch with a resolution of 1/20th of a second and a max time of 59 minutes and 59.95 seconds.
•Daily alarm.
•Automatic calendar with day and date (no month).
•World time with 27 cities covering 29 time zones. You can also swap your home city and the world time city by holding down the top right button for about three seconds while in world time mode.
•Very bright luminescent paint on the hands and hour indices.
•Water resistant to 200 meters, or about 650 feet.
•46.8mm wide and 14.6mm high, 113g.

The MRG is fairly feature-rich, but it’s downfall is that some of the features are not easy to use. Because the watch is entirely analog with no LCDs, its operation suffers from the same complexity we’ve seen in many of Casio’s Oceanus watches. The hands are also slow to move into place when changing time zones, or switching back to time mode from alarm mode. In my opinion, if you make frequent use an alarm, second time zone, or a stopwatch, there are better options out there than the MRG-7500 (notably Casios or Citizens with LCDs). But if you’re looking for an extremely tough and good looking analog watch which gets all the basics right, the MRG-7500 is an excellent choice, and one of my favorite G-Shocks of all time. Of course, Casio wouldn’t dare sell a $1,500 G-Shock in the US (for good reason), so you’ll have to extend your reach beyond our borders in order to get one.

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